THE REPUBLICS
OF LATIN AMERICA
CHAPTER I
THE EUROPEAN BACKGROUND. THE NATIVE RACES.
DISCOVERY AND SETTLEMENT
Purpose of the Chapter. The present chapter of our text is designed to serve as an approach to the somewhat detailed study of the history and institutions of Latin America. It includes such topics as a survey of the Spanish and Portuguese background, a brief discussion of the distribution and civilization of the most important pre-Columbian people with whom the Spanish and Portuguese explorers and colonists came into contact, and a summary of the period of discovery and exploration. Particular attention is devoted to those Iberian institutions which were transplanted to and took root in the New World.
The Physiography of the Iberian Peninsula: Its Historic Importance. Although the existence within the Iberian peninsula of two distinct nationalities is due, not to physiographic, but to historic causes the Spanish and Portuguese peoples have in the main been moulded by the same geographical influences. The very location of the peninsula has acted as such an influence. The Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea which all but surround it would naturally make for maritime expansion. On the other hand the lofty ranges of the Pyrenees on the north would tend to isolate the Iberian peoples from contact not only with France but also with the rest of Europe. Within the peninsula itself the most striking geographical features are the number and configuration of the mountain ranges and the vast expanses of dreary uniformity. The whole north central portion of the
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